Solution for Overcoming Inequality through Education

According to the International Labor Organization, income inequality has increased in about two thirds of countries world since the 1990s. The financial crisis and the accompanying global recession ...

According to the International Labor Organization, income inequality has increased in about two thirds of countries world since the 1990s. The financial crisis and the accompanying global recession are expected to widen the gap further between the rich and the poor.

Use publicly funded grant schemes to provide cheap access to education for the poor, particularly for girls. If financial impediments hinder children from going to school, provide financial aid to parents conditional on children’s school attendance. Policies must reflect the fact that girls’ and boys’obstacles to education differ.

Lack of financial resources is one of the major impediments faced by children with disadvantaged backgrounds that hinder them from being adequately educated. Clearly identifying the disadvantaged groups to be supported and providing financial aid for them is probably the first step to helping them with financial limitations on education.

But the potential effects of financial aid alone on increasing education accessibility may be limited due to the biased incentives of parents. Thus, to ensure that parents indeed send their children, no matter whether they are girls or boys, to schools, financial aid should be made strictly conditional on children’s access to schools.

Since girls and boys often face different obstacles to becoming educated in many developing countries, policies that address these obstacles must differ as well. For example, it is much more likely that a young girl will be removed from school because she has to help the mother gather firewood, take care of younger children, or be married off at an early age. Toilet facility availability turns out to be crucial for girls in middle school. Without it, these maturing girls will often not proceed with their education. Publicly funded grant schemes must take these issues into account.

Target policies at the type of inequality to be tackled to overcome inequality of opportunity, remove obstacles to education for children from disadvantaged backgrounds; to overcome inequality of outc ...

Target policies at the type of inequality to be tackled to overcome inequality of opportunity, remove obstacles to education for children from disadvantaged backgrounds; to overcome inequality of outcome, increase incentives to teach and incentives to learn effectively.

Refocus teaching content on encouraging students to learn actively, for example, by running experiments themselves instead of learning only predetermined textbook material, and teach students to be mo ...

Refocus teaching content on encouraging students to learn actively, for example, by running experiments themselves instead of learning only predetermined textbook material, and teach students to be more self-confident and self-critical.